Coupling relationships: Freedom, intimacy, and the institution of marriage

This study addresses how unmarried couples conceptualize, act on and balance their needs for freedom and intimacy in love relationship, as well as how these values impact their decisions surrounding marriage and alternatives to it. Couples who are discriminated against by the institution of marriage spoke to the impact of this on their relational dynamics and commitment decisions. The part of the study focusing on the institution of marriage asked all participants to speak to three things: their views of marriage and commitment; their values and practices in regard to the balance of freedom and intimacy between them and how these relate to their decision-making processes; and how these views, values and practices inform their opinions regarding the institution of marriage for couples today.; Individuals and couples were interviewed using the feminist, voice-centered method of narrative analysis developed by the researchers of the Harvard Project on Women's Psychology and Girls' Development (Brown & Gilligan, 1992). This method of narrative analysis was chosen due to its sensitivity to the effects of systemic, moral, political and societal pressures on the minds and actions of human beings. It is described as phenomenological in nature, holistic in approach, and reliant on summaries of themes distilled from the narratives analyzed.; The researcher selected from the pool of respondents a diverse group in terms of sexual orientation, couple combinations, gender and racial combinations, socioeconomic status, relationship experience, and age. All participant couples were not married. One forty-five to sixty-minute, interactive interview was conducted with each individual member of the couple. A second, sixty to ninety-minute interview was conducted with both partners present.; It was discovered that freedom and intimacy are in close, often direct or circular relationship to one another and can be thus co-creative or co-destructive within couple's relationships. Participants also highlight the various ways they believe the institution of marriage has not kept up with radical changes in American culture or modern day couple's relationships, values and needs. Ideas and practices surrounding what constitutes and supports freedom, intimacy and love---and what does not---related to relationship agreements made by the couples studied.